This invention relates to an apparatus for selectively cutting the exerior layers of cables and, more particularly, to an apparatus that can be adjusted to facilitate cutting and stripping insulation from cables.
In the electrical connector industry, it is often necessary to connect multiple wires or cables to a particular connector. Before the connection can be made, the insulation from the cable or wire must be stripped, exposing the central wire so that it may be introduced into the connector for crimping, soldering, and the like.
This is a particular problem when a coaxial cable is used since there are several layers of insulation surrounding the central conductor. In addition there is usually a metal sheath surrounding a portion of the insulation. The exterior insulation must be stripped away from both the metal sheath and the central conductor so that the proper electrical connection can be made.
Various methods have been used in the prior art to achieve this result with machine strippers or cutters. Thus in U.S. Pat. No. 4,059,893 issued Nov. 29, 1977 to Solury, a rotating knife is used to cut the cable insulation. While this is generally satisfactory for stripping single cables one at a time it is difficult to use this particular method simultaneously for multiple cables which are to be connected to the closely spaced lugs of an electrical terminal. The rotating cutters cannot be spaced closely together or they will interfere with each others operation. In addition the use of a knife, in and of itself, requires frequent sharpening of the knife blade since the active cutting surface is relatively small.
Cutters in which a cutting ring, with a cutting edge forming the inside of the ring, orbits about the material to be cut are known from U.S. Pat. No. 2,457,415 issued Dec. 28, 1948 to Trautmann. A cutter of this type is adapted to cut rivets but has never been applied to electrical connectors either singly or in an array form. A similar cutter for tubes is described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,724,073 issued Apr. 3, 1973 Lewandowski.
Finally a multi-core connector plug cutter is described in Japanese patent application No. 093781 filed May 31, 1982. This application describes the use of an orbital cutter for cutting wires but does not contemplate cutting and stripping insulation from multiple cables. Furthermore it is difficult to adjust the radius and hence the depth of the cut made by the orbital motion of the cutters described in the Japanese Application. No provision is made to make two circumferential cuts each of a different depth on the same wire such as is required for a coaxial cable.